Three Sheldon and Penny One Shots
by VeryBerry Rebecca
Summary: Three stand alone one-shots originally written for the Paradox Drabble-a-thon: 'From the Ashes of War', 'Digital Music of the Night', and 'The Elevation Reaction.'
1. From the Ashes of War

1, From the Ashes of War

Prompt: Waterballoons

So it's come to this: The only thing standing between failure and victory in the battle to end all battles, is Sheldon remembering that one should never sleep with the enemy...

Crouched behind the kitchen island, Sheldon acknowledged to himself that she had put up a valiant fight. From his position behind the arm chair, Sheldon risked a subtle look around the arm. Immediately, a flash of blue, quick and deft, launched into the air on a direct path to his face. Sheldon ducked behind the seat again just in time; in that moment the bomb passed through the space he had occupied not a second before and instead of connecting with his face, it struck the wall. It exploded instantly on impact, and its contents partially brushed against his face and body.

He wiped his face on his sleeve and turned to his companion. "On my signal," he whispered, and Howard acknowledged with a nod.

They were down to their last supply and stranded in a stalemate; they had no choice but to go down fighting, and if they had to go out, they were taking the enemy down with them.

He just had to pick his moment.

Sheldon felt confident he had successfully uncovered the opposition's strategy and had identified its weakness, its fatal flaw, the small window of opportunity he had in which to strike.

Raj was the first to fall. He had taken position under the dining table in enemy territory, but a surprise attack took him out. She was among the ambush party. He couldn't even cry out for help. Leonard was the next to go. His was a regrettable loss, but the traitor had taken up arms against them, and it was a mistake Leonard had paid for.

But this was no time to dwell on loss. It was vital at this junction that his focus was concentrated solely on the impending attack.

Sheldon signalled for Howard to deploy decoy fire as she carried out her predictable operation:

Three bombs. Then two as she scrabbled for another three, which were delivered in one blow. Then a single shot, and the pause as she scrabbled for more ammunition... 

And in that pause was the window of opportunity he had been waiting for.

"FIRE!"

Sheldon dropped his arm and both he and Howard leapt from behind the chair in battlecry and hurled a barrage of water balloon fire over the top of the kitchen island. Penny screamed with surprise and laughter as the onslaught of balloons exploded over her. She ducked behind the counter with her arms over her head, but her feeble protection was no match for their two-against-one attack.

When their arms were empty Howard cried out triumphantly and danced around the room, however Sheldon's victorious smile melted when he saw what he'd created.

Penny heaved herself from the new pond around her oven; her shorts and top were utterly drenched and seeping water down her body and her legs. She seemed to rise in slow motion; drops of water forming winding, intricate pathways down her legs and arms, water trickled from her wet hair down her face and parted around her laughing mouth.

She drew up to full height, her top sliding up over her skin as she stretched. Penny's laughter exhausted itself and she was left standing in her kitchen panting with lingering adrenaline.

The thought that Penny might catch pneumonia if she stood there much longer wasn't the foremost thought in his mind.

"Penny," Sheldon half-whispered. "You're... all wet."

Penny pushed her wet curling hair out of her face, and with her hands on her hips, surveyed the damage around her. "So I am," she said looking back up at him, her moistened skin glistening. "I should probably go take them off."

She turned and glided in her water-logged sandals into her bedroom, and as Penny closed the door to change Sheldon discovered a disquieting urge to follow her in there.


	2. Digital Music of the Night

Digital Music of the Night

Prompt: Digital Get Down by N*Sync

Penny and Sheldon find an interesting way to use their webcams while Sheldon is out of town.

At first all she saw was the blocky impression of his t-shirt, then Sheldon lowered into view.

"Can you see me?" His words were tinny through her speakers.

"Just about," said Penny in her bedroom. She looked directly into the webcam. "Are you sure about this?"

"What could happen Penny?" he reassured her, but Penny wasn't as comfortable as Sheldon seemed to be. "It's 5.30 your time. Leonard is still at work and so won't be home to intrude on us."

All the same Penny shifted uncomfortably. Usually she was up for experimentation like this, but this was just plain weird. "And no one can, like, see us, either?"

"The connection is securely isolated and the password security would take 20 minutes for the most skilled hacker to bypass. I assure you that even if someone as dedicated as Wolowitz attempted to hack this, we'd know about it."

Sheldon had been working abroad for 3 weeks now and this was as close as they'll be for another 6 days until the next available time Sheldon could call. Maybe doing it over the phone wasn't as bad as she'd thought; then she'd felt they had more privacy.

Sheldon seemed to know what she was thinking as his pixilated image twitched. "I think this venture will benefit us both now we can see each other. I don't mean to be selfish but it certainly has more effect for me if can see what you're doing."

She adjusted her position on her bed, and in the smaller window she could see she was now centre of the camera. "Shall we just start then?"

"Alright," said Sheldon in the way he would conduct an experiment. "Proceed."

Penny took a deep breath, placed her hands on her abdomen, and opened her mouth.

Simultaneously Sheldon pushed his fingers into the keyboard in front of him, and the first chords of Christine's solo from 'Point of No Return' trembled through the speakers. Penny began to sing, quietly at first, but she concentrated hard on hearing to the music Sheldon played along his electronic keyboard, broken by the slight delay, and gradually her voice became stronger. Sheldon beamed and continued calling encouragements and pointers to her, and by the time he came into the duet with her the notes bounded out of Penny broadly and brightly.

"...Any where you go let me go, too. Penny, that's all I ask of you."

Penny laughed at his little ad lib as he finished up the final chord. He released the keys and looked up smiling proudly from her screen. "Excellent! You sound much better than before I left. Come opening night I dare say the North Calafornian Amature Musical Dramatic society will never have heard an aria more note perfect."

"What can I say? I've 'been taking lessons from a great teacher'," she sparkled. "Perhaps tutoring me through a webcam isn't so insane."

"I'm glad you agree, this method does offer more advantages than any other means of long-distance tutoring we've tried. For instance not only can I hear you but it's also easier to play now I'm not holding a cell to my ear." His fingers trilled between two keys to demonstrate. "As I said, it's better from a logical stand point."

"I suppose. While we're here," said Penny slyly, lowering her top so her cleavage became more alluringly obvious, "is there anything else I can do, Dr Cooper?"

Though his eyes slid from the cam to his screen, to Penny's surprise Sheldon shuddered. "Uh, I don't mean to offend, Penny, but I find the notion of intimacy over an internet connection rather an undesirable one, not to mention it being...weird."

"Huh," was all the puzzled sound she could muster, rearranging her top. "Singing, yes. Sex, no?" Maybe Sheldon Cooper wasn't a scientist as open to experimentation as he claimed.

Penny watched the screen as Sheldon cleared away his keyboard in his hotel room. "How long 'til your home again?"

"Two months, three weeks." he said flatly.

A bittersweet smile pulled at Penny's mouth. Sheldon sat back down again. Behind him the hotel room looked so empty and large for just him.

"Oh honey," Penny said softly, lifting her hand to the screen to stroke Shedlon's pixalted face. "I so wish you'd come back sooner. I miss you."

Sheldon swallowed hard. The feed on the laptop screen began to break. He looked directly into his camera, straight out of the screen at Penny as the world around him seemed to tremble and jar.

"Penny," he said, his voice distant and tinny, but his eyes cutting straight through the screen and directly into hers. "Penny, I mi-"

And the connection finally broke. Quiet white noise fizzed in the air, and Penny was left completely alone in her bedroom, a hand touching a clear and empty screen.


	3. The Elevation Reaction

**The Elevation Reaction**

Sheldon stepped into the entrance lobby. Something was different; something in the air told him change had occurred.

He took a tentative step forward, then another. The lockers were the same. The rug, though thinning, had not altered either. What was it?

A tension. Something soft and dull. A noise.

Sheldon swung 172 degrees around (to his approximation) and searched with his eyes for the source of the faint buzz piercing through the hall way.

"The elevator," he whispered to himself. He moved closer to the cold closed doors and ran a hand around the edges gently, feeling for this new disturbance. Unintentional words escaped his lips again, to himself, "The elevator..."

"What about it?"

Sheldon leaped into the air in fright, flinging himself into the elevator doors. "Penny," he gasped as soon as his heart rate had returned to a more typical rhythm. "Good lord, do not sneak up on me when I am in the middle of hypothesising, it is the height of rudeness."

Penny stood framed in the entrance doorway, a well travelled gym bag slung over her shoulder, amused at the shock she had caused. "What about the elevator?" she repeated.

"Don't you see?"

Penny shrugged.

With a flicker of exasperation, Sheldon pointed to the elevator button. "The LED in the call button is lit. The elevator is fixed."

"Then why are you waiting? Come on then!" She bounded over to Sheldon and hit the button. "Let's try it out!"

The elevator doors slid uneasily apart. Penny hopped inside then, rather hesitantly, so did Sheldon. "I don't feel secure at all, this could still be a death trap for all we know. Has it been tested?"

"They wouldn't leave it open if hadn't been tested. Be more adventurous, Sheldon!" She pressed the button for their floor. As the doors shuddered shut again and the lazy elevator mechanism rumbled into life Sheldon's acute hearing caught a familiar sound.

"Was that Leonard?" he asked, raising his voice over the hum of the slowly ascending metal.

"Maybe," said Penny distantly.

"Was he asking us to hold the elev-?"

But before Sheldon could complete his thought, the world suddenly dropped. Sheldon staggered as the closet-sized elevator lurched to a dead stop. A bell rang in the darkness, and after a few seconds a faint blue light flickered on.

"Penny," said Sheldon with measured calm. "Penny, now don't be alarmed, but I think something's wrong with the elevator."

"No kidding, Professor."

Sheldon turned back to her after unsuccessfully prodding at the panel of buttons to make it start again, and he was surprised to see her grinning.

"I don't think they have fixed the problem."

"I know they haven't," explained Penny, "I tried it earlier and got stuck for twenty minutes."

Sheldon looked horrified. "Then why did you want us to take the lift?"

"So I could encourage you to be more adventurous."

And by the cool pale glow of the emergency light, alone for once, Penny slipped closer to Sheldon, and kissed him.

When they were finally released from the elevator, Sheldon wouldn't say what they did for a whole hour waiting to be rescued, no matter how much Leonard pried. All Leonard was left to do was conclude that Sheldon was not one to learn from his mistakes; the super was called out five more times that week to rescue Penny and Sheldon from that elevator.


End file.
